Peace on the TARDIS
by musicmillennia
Summary: Rose and the Doctor enjoy a brief respite on the TARDIS. A little fluff with angst sprinkled in, with mentions of Peter Pan and J.M. Barrie.


Quiet time in the TARDIS is exceedingly rare, which makes it all the more precious when it comes. Rose used to frown at it, hardly lasting more than a few minutes (or what she thinks is a few minutes, you can never tell in a time machine roaring through the Vortex) before she's searching for the Doctor with the intent to beg him for another adventure or at least a distraction. However, now she savors these little moments of peace, especially when she found out that the TARDIS kitchen makes an excellent cuppa. Well, that, and when she found the huge library (with a swimming pool, how fun was that?).

Rose did have a love for books. She never read the assigned novels in school, but that was only due to her teachers and their boring yet effective ways of ruining the words for her. Any other book she was interested in though always had a special place in her heart; right next to the lovely man in the pinstriped suit that was doing God knows what at the moment while she took her tea into the TARDIS library.

"Alright then," she sighed happily, placing her mug on an end table beside a comfy blue couch, "Let's see what we've got."

What she got was practically every book in all of time and space at her fingertips. If the TARDIS didn't have a monitor with which Rose could look up a book, this would have been very daunting. But the TARDIS did have a monitor with which she could look up a book.

Rose was in the mood for fiction, so she tapped the option on the screen. A series of fiction types popped up under a Search bar. To the left of the Search was a button called '_Randomize_'. Rose only knew she wanted to read a fictional book, but seeing as she didn't have a specific type in mind, pressed her finger to that option.

The monitor took barely half a second before a random book was selected out of them all. Rose needed only to look at the cover before starting to laugh.

(break)

Usually when they stopped for a brief respite on the TARDIS, Rose would take a few hours to do 'human stuff', such as partaking in her sleep cycle and hygienic needs. Afterwards, the Doctor saw—not that he was following her around or anything—Rose go to one of the kitchens and make herself a cup of tea or a snack. She would have a few more minutes of 'quiet time' before coming back to the control room with that ready-for-anything smile that always made him gladly reach for the nearest knob to take them to their next destination.

It had been roughly 17 hours, 12 minutes, and 1.247 seconds, and Rose had yet to emerge. The Doctor wasn't worried, per se; Rose _was _still on the TARDIS, obviously, and he would have been warned on the impossible chance she was in danger in any possible way. It was just that matter of her not coming into the control room yet. He was just…casually interested as to what was taking her so long. Yes, that's what it was. Casual interest.

_Every time you're casually interested in something a whole planet is in danger, _a little voice grumbled in the back of his mind.

Yes, thank you post-Time War insanity. How delightful for you to stick around after regeneration. But it was Rose, and this was the TARDIS. He could be casually interested without anything dangerous happening.

Still…wouldn't hurt to check on her.

The Doctor walked through the TARDIS corridors, deciding to check her room first. He knocked, but all was quiet. Maybe she was still asleep? That incident with those cockroach people—Rose called them that because apparently Carfordians was too difficult to pronounce while running for her life—must have been a bit more taxing than she let on.

But unlike her mother, Rose Tyler was a very light sleeper, so she would have woken up as soon as he was approaching her door. The Doctor opened it just in case; the bed was made, and she wasn't there.

It was at this point the TARDIS thought to take pity on her dear Time Lord, for he truly was getting a bit worried. She hummed for him to check the library, and off he went.

The swimming pool casted a mesmerizing glow about the large room, and the lights were on otherwise, so it was that much easier to pinpoint the bright pink and yellow girl smiling into a book while sipping tea on a deep blue velvet couch. The Doctor didn't know—rather, he made himself not think about—why he was so relieved to behold the happy sight of Rose enjoying a book, smiling and breathing and…just being there.

"Did you know him?" Rose asked, not looking up from her current page.

"Know who?" the Doctor asked, walking around the swimming pool to get to her.

"This author."

"Oh yes, Barrie and I go way back. Why?"

Rose moved her legs from where they were stretched out, settling them on the Doctor's lap when he took a seat near her. The Doctor started rubbing her feet absent mindedly, because he just liked to hear his Rose sigh in that little contented way.

"Haven't you ever noticed that Peter Pan is _you_?" she asked.

"Well, I…I never really thought about it to be honest," the Doctor answered, "But I did enjoy that book. Teared up a bit at the end though, I will say."

"Oi! Don't spoil it!"

"What? I thought you already knew the story!"

"Yeah, but I've never _read _it!"

"It's basically the same ending, though!"

"_Doctor_!"

"_Rose_!"

The room went silent, the only sounds being the TARDIS' continual humming. They stared at each other with fixed gazes, daring the other to break first. Both of them were infinitely stubborn people in all areas, so it took a while before they dissolved into laughter in unison.

They laughed and laughed, merriment bouncing off the TARDIS walls while at the same time sticking a new memory that the Doctor would in the future look back at with two broken hearts. The pair jumped off the couch and scurried hand in hand back to the control room, _Peter Pan _left on the table, where it would later be picked up and soaked with a sorrow that could fill a thousand galaxies.

"Allons-y, Rose Tyler!"

"Wait, Doctor! Could we maybe visit my mum first?"

"But—"

"Please? I have to give her that present I bought. The one that can tell the weather."

"Oh…fine. Just a quick pop, then I have to show you this one planet that has waterfalls made of fire!"

"Oo, can't wait! _After_ we visit Mum."

"Yes, yes, after we visit _her_."

Rose grinned all the way to the Powell Estate.


End file.
